For Goodness' Sake

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For Goodness' Sake
More Misery from the BBC and some European Hypocrites.
20/11/08

Unfortunately, retail sales in October only fell by 0.1 percent, rather than the 0.9 percent predicted by miserable analysts.

The BBC have greeted this highly positive news with dire analysis and bleak forecasts.

They have so much power in their hands! Surely as many people would have read the story if the headline was 'Higher than Expected Sales sparks optimism among retailers', rather than 'Retail sales bring scant comfort'. And then people might realise it's actually ok to go shopping again. But no, the BBC have managed to turn it into bad news.

Another set of mindless hypocrites are the morons who come up and implement EU directives. Anti competition laws mean that it is AGAINST THE LAW in Europe to 'fix prices'. This has many ramifications. Retailers cannot agree among themselves to sell an item for a certain price and not undercut each other. This is good for the consumer, of course.
However wholesalers also can't set a minimum price their goods can be sold at by their customers (who are retailers). That means that an internet retailer with no overheads can sell goods at a tiny profit margin, undercutting all the businesses who employ staff and run shops. This is good for people who like buying on the internet, but bad for people who like working in shops for a living, as it becomes uneconomically viable. Many companies have been caught out in a big way and fined a lot of money, most recently airlines were in the news for this, but there are cases in every industry.
The reasons for the anti competition laws are alright, and the laws themselves are okay. Except that it's all RUBBISH because it all goes out of the window whenever anyone official decides it should. Two recent cases:
1. Tesco were told to stop buying milk at 'too low' prices as not enough money was getting back to farmers. TOO BAD, you made the law, live with the consequences.
2. This week, the EU has decided that candles from China are too cheap, as they are undercutting European candle makers, and apparently selling at 'below cost'. Again, TOO BAD. Not too bad, the EU has the power and is using it to fine the Chinese candle exporters. I can't find this story on the BBC website, but I heard it on the radio. What a bunch of stupid hypocrites.

And back to the BBC, who are also hypocrites, as we have established. Another story I now can't find reported this week on a study which found that we are all disproportionately afraid of young people. This is bad, says the BBC, acting surprised, as most young people are actually alright. Although you wouldn't guess it by the way that they leap on to every story about violence among youths, and dig out a new stabbing to report on almost every day, taking care each time to report on how many other stabbings they know about, and making no mention of the high percentage of young people who didn't stab each other this week, or ever.

That's enough moaning.

An an entirely different subject, I was thinking about how many people didn't like the Bond film even though I thought it was brilliant. It led me to the conclusion that even though lots of people are very stupid, a large proportion of Bond fans might not be wrong. Maybe it isn't exactly what Bond is supposed to be. I think people enjoy different elements of Bond films, and the people who only like Bond for the terrible puns, fantastical story lines and unthinkable gadgets are entitled to be disappointed by the new film. But I still think they are wrong to say it isn't Bond - the film maintains many of the traditional elements of a Bond film, it just doesn't use all of them.

That's enough now, I am tired.

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